oxen and cart, seized the oxen by the cord, crying, "Stop, fellow; these oxen and this cart belong to me." Down leaped the man from the cart, angrily exclaiming, "You rascal! Illisa, the Lord High Treasurer, is giving away his wealth to all the city. What has come to you?" And he sprang at the Treasurer and struck him on the back like a falling thunder-bolt, and went off with the cart. Illisa picked himself up, trembling in every limb, wiped off the mud, and hurrying after his cart, seized hold of it. Again the countryman got down, and seizing Illisa by the hair, doubled him up and thumped him about the head for some time; then taking him by the throat, he flung him back the way be had come, and drove off. Sobered by this rough usage, Illisa hurried off home. There, seeing folk making off with the treasure, he fell to laying hands on here a man and there a man, shrieking, "Hi! what's this? Is the king despoiling me?" And every man he laid hands on knocked him down. Bruised and smarting, he sought to take refuge in his own house, when the porters stopped him with, "Holloa, you rascal! Where might you be going?" And first thrashing him soundly with bamboos, they took their master by the throat and threw him out of doors. "There is none but the king left to see me righted," groaned Illisa, and betook himself to the palace. "Why, oh why, sire," he cried, "have you plundered me like this?"

"Nay, it was not I, my Lord Treasurer," said the king. "Did you not yourself come and declare your intention of giving your wealth away, if I would not accept it? And did you not then send the crier round and carry out your threat?" "Oh sire, indeed it was not I that came to you on such an errand. Your majesty knows how near and close I am, and how I never give away so much as the tiniest drop of oil which a blade of grass will take up. May it please your majesty to send for him who has given my substance away, and to question him on the matter."

Then the king sent for Sakka. And so exactly alike were the two that neither the king nor his court could tell which, was the real Lord High Treasurer. Said the miser Illisa, "Who, and what, sire, is this Treasurer? I am the Treasurer."